‘Your Weekly WOW’

‘Your Weekly WOW’ is a much-beloved looking glass into the highlight-worthy moments that occur in IDEO's 9 locations across the globe. I pursued a strategy to use the mailing to introduce new content creation tools to our firm by reimagining the traditionally static document as interactive, web-based and device agnostic; specifically, one that leveraged the innumerable benefits granted web technologies over their more traditional counterparts.

I outfitted the Slides web presentation framework with custom JavaScript-powered SVG animations; videos; animated GIFs; beautiful web font pairings and corresponding color treatments; analytics; and a pair of embedded games, one touch-friendly for mobile viewers and another requiring keyboard input for desktop visitors.

My strategy proved fruitful. The responses and unique visitors to the internal site came from nearly everyone in the firm. Web-based presentation tools are now in heavy rotation across the company, and we even made a publicly-viewable version of my work for use in our cultural and marketing efforts.

Empathy and the Promise of Virtual Reality

I co-hosted a VR workshop at IDEO San Francisco with my colleague, Dav Rauch. I covered two approaches to ‎VR‬ prototyping, while Dav detailed his editorial and effects pipeline for VR content.

I wrote a piece detailing our thoughts on the promise of the technology, as well as a corresponding tutorial as a compliment to our workshop — complete with code samples — viewable on Github.

Frisky [dot] Ninja

Sara Frisk is one of the baddest design leaders I know; she's also one of my dearest friends in this world.

When Sara left IDEO, we hosted a send-off gathering to celebrate her time witn us. Stories were told; gifts were granted; we ate; we drank; times were merry.

I couldn't let my dear friend venture out into the world without a proper portfolio site, so I gifted her a presence with a nod to the GeoCities aesthetic of old.

The site's original URL was frisky [dot] ninja, and even sports a mother. effing. <blink> tag. (naturally)

Song for Olivia

When my niece, Olivia, was due for surgery, my brother, a composer and producer, wrote her a song. Not even a year old at the time, there was no way for Olivia to experience the music without help from her parents.

So, I teamed up with an IDEO colleague, Garrett, and we set out to solve the problem.

I created artwork to accompany the song and purchased a plush monkey and picture frame. We laser cut a new acrylic housing for the rear of the frame and picked up an Arduino, along with an RFID/NFC shield and MP3 player, and we got to work.

Mentoring Luis

For the better part of a year, I mentored Luis, a 13-year old I first met through the Spark Program. I taught Luis about the design process, converting hand drawn illustration into vector assets, game logic and JavaScrpt, while he ensured that I had more homework than I could ever handle as he knocked out any and all lessons as quickly as I could prepare them each week.

Luis and I created a concept and demo for a mobile game with a ridiculous name. You can read about our efforts on the City of Chicago’s ‘One Good Deed’ blog here.

The Day I Broke the Intranet

I was barely into my second week at IDEO's San Francisco location when a particular opportunity to get to know my new colleagues presented itself. The above image was sent, location-wide, with the subject line: ‘Innovation.’

My chosen response that would set off the largest Photoshop Battle in IDEO history. I detailed the experience in an article on our site.

‘Moss Graffiti Bomb All the Things’

I was invited to design a header image for IDEO’s internal ‘News You Can Use (NUCU)’ mailing. I chose moss as my medium for creation, enlisted the assistance of a colleague and crafted a living, graffiti stencil image on the north wall of IDEO’s San Francisco Headquarters.

The below-linked video details our process and effort.

CTRL-AULT-DEL

When an AIGA colleague, Amber Aultman, suggested I might speak at an event she hosted in Jacksonville, FL, I told her I would make her a porfolio site if she followed through on the offer.

Long story short, she did, I'm a man of my word, the event was wonderful, and this the site.

Redesigning the Walgreens Pharmacy Experience

IDEO created a new format for Walgreens pharmacies, with private consultation rooms, pharmacists out on the pharmacy floor, and Take Care clinics.

I led the digital prototyping effort for the project — from technology vetting to implementation and testing — crafting tablet, touchscreen and informational experiences throughout the two full-size pharmacy prototypes we created.

Evltwn (2004)

As so many designers do, I spent the first years of my career emulating the work of the new media artists I most admired. It wasn't until 2004 that I remembered to mind my roots.

I grew up in the punk and industrial music and art scenes, ever inspired by the DIY ethos embodied by the creators I so adored. With these such influences in mind, I derived a theme, gathered four friends to embody the characters I had in mind, bought some props, crafted a makeshift green screen, and even commissioned a sound designer and voiceover actor.

In the end, I wrote some absurd copy, and made a grimy, glitched-out website that earned me a FWA of the Day (this was a big deal back in the day, kids 👴).

Grayarea Website (2003)

In the early 2000s, my brother teamed up with a pair of our friends to form an electronic music trio called, Grayarea

To promote their epic run and exhaustive tour schedule, I made innumerable websites, album artwork, posters, flyers, and videos.

This is, perhaps, my favorite of the bunch.